


If You're Waltzing, And I'm Walzting, Who's Playing Brahms?

by alexygalaxy



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Dancing, Ficlet, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:27:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29484441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexygalaxy/pseuds/alexygalaxy
Summary: belated valentine's day spirk dancing scene.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Comments: 8
Kudos: 50





	If You're Waltzing, And I'm Walzting, Who's Playing Brahms?

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is set post-requiem for methuselah because that episodes makes me lose control.

Spock looked up from his book for the fourth time in the last fourteen point three seven minutes, unable to focus on the words on the page due to extraneous noise. His eyes quickly locked in on the source: the man lying on Spock’s bed, hands resting behind his head and legs propped up in a comfortable position. His eyes were closed, and a smile was just tugging at his lips as he hummed. 

“What are you humming?” Spock asked, out of courtesy, though he recognized the tune. 

“Just some … song,” Jim answered. 

“Why?”

“Well, I don’t know. It’s just been bouncing around my head lately.”

Spock gave no verbal reply, but Jim could feel the slight judgement and the cocking of his eyebrow radiating from the armchair across the room where he sat. 

“Come now, Spock,” he said, rolling to his side to face him. “You’re really going to tell me you’ve  _ never _ had something in your mind for no reason?”

“I -”

Jim cut him off with a dismissive hand wave. “Of course you haven’t, I knew as soon as the words left my mouth.”

Spock settled back in his chair with an air of satisfaction, raising his book to once again attempt to read. He didn’t even have the chance to finish the sentence he’d left off on before the humming was back, keeping him from properly comprehending all the nuances of the prose. He closed his book.

“Would you like me to play it for you?” he asked, already moving towards the corner of his quarters where he kept his instruments. “External auditory input might help to satisfy your fixation on the melody.”

“You know it?”

“I believe it to be one of Brahms’ waltzes.”

“By all means.”

Spock settled himself onto a small bench, sliding back a panel in the table to reveal a keyboard set into the wood. By no means was it a concert-grade piano, but it served well enough when he wished to practice the melodic coordination of the fingers. Jim pushed himself to sitting on the bed, leaning forwards with his elbows on his knees as he watched Spock begin to play. 

It was mesmerizing, the way his back shifted as he leant into the keys, and the smooth lilt of his head back and forth as it kept a slight but steady downbeat. Jim couldn’t take his eyes off it. Yet, even as he sat there, the humming crept back into his throat, and he began to sway along with the music. 

He rose to standing and his feet moved in threes, almost against his will, the song unlocking some form of muscle memory that he didn’t care to fight. His arms began to drift up as though holding an invisible partner as he three-stepped his way about the room. 

Something felt wrong about this, Jim decided. Him dancing, happy, with Spock all by his lonesome in the corner, barely even looking up from the instrument. He made his way across the floor, to Spock’s side, and stuck an inviting hand out. 

“Yes, Jim?” Spock asked, taking care to finish the phrase before taking his hands off the piano. 

“You’ve shown such a skill for the waltz with your fingers,” Jim said. “Care to test if it transfers to your feet as well?”

“Are you asking me to dance?”

“Indeed I am.” 

“If the two of us are dancing, who do you propose plays the music?” Spock leaned back, crossing his arms. 

“No one,” Jim grinned. 

The eyebrow quirked again. “A waltz without music is quite the strange prospect.”

Jim cocked his head knowingly in response. “A waltz without music, Spock, is a very convenient excuse to be close to someone. Now -” he moved his hand even closer - “will you join me?”

Spock considered for a moment before taking Jim’s hand and letting himself be lead up, off the piano bench, into the center of his room. He placed his free hand on Jim’s shoulder as he felt a matching hand settle onto his waist, and entwined his fingers with Jim’s for a more comfortable grip on the hand already being held. 

Jim began to hum that same strain of the melody, pushing them around the room. They stepped in stiff threes, both familiar with the technical steps of the waltz, but Spock uncomfortably unpracticed with the sensation of doing them with a partner. Soon, his discomfort at the dance was overridden with astonishment that Jim had continued the melody past what Spock had played for him. 

Something about the act of dancing must have uncovered a sliver of memory in him of the first time he’d heard this waltz; in a ballroom on a planet in the Omega system, an android girl pressed up against his cheek, Spock across the room with his hands dancing alone across a piano. He had tried to wipe Jim’s memory of the occurrence on that planet at Dr. McCoy’s recommendation, but some things are out of the reach of even a Vulcan’s mental abilities. 

He dared to look down at Jim’s face below his. A soft grin was creeping across it, and Spock tried not to consider whether it’s source lay in present or past experience. 

Before he could get too far into not considering it, he was yet again distracted by the sound of Jim’s humming. It had strayed off-melody, drifting around the scale aimlessly as his memory appeared to be failing him.

“Those are not the notes,” Spock said, prompting the waltz to come to a halt.

“My apologies,” Jim returned. “I don’t suppose you’d care to correct them.”

“I am not a singer, Jim.”

“Who’s going to hear you? Try it, Spock.”

Spock stood quietly, not humming at all. 

“Please,” Jim asked, and slid the hand on his waist further around his back, drawing their chests a bit closer together. 

Spock fought the hitch in his throat at the touch of Jim’s fingers against the small of his back, and began to hum. It was quiet, much quieter than Jim’s humming had been, but the melody was still discernible, and the two of them began to stutter back into a waltz step. 

To keep the pulse of the downbeat, Spock gave the hand of Jim’s he was holding a squeeze at the start of each measure. Once he was settled into tempo, Jim started answering with two squeezes on the upbeats. Their feet were hardly moving, Jim was far too close to Spock at this point for them to make sizable steps without tripping over each other. Spock’s voice dropped in volume as they went on, and Jim responded by pressing the side of his head up to Spock’s chest, so he could hear the vibrations of his chest as he sang. 

Spock afforded himself a moment to glance down at Jim. Their one set of hands were still intertwined, passing pressure back and forth. Jim’s other hand had snaked up Spock’s back, resting just below his shoulder blades and pressing in with a familiar warmth. His own other arm had slipped from a formal hand on Jim’s shoulder to being lazily draped over it at the elbow, leaving his hand free to slowly creep up and cradle Jim’s head. 

Jim sunk into the contact, craning his head back to grin at Spock as they swayed lazily in the solitude of Spock’s quarters. His face radiated contentment, and Spock barely fought the smile that began to ghost across his own face. 

Eventually, the song came to an end, and the thrum in Spock’s chest fell to rest. Jim made no move to break away, though there was no dancing left to be done. His hair was a little tousled from where it had pressed into Spock’s shirt. Spock withdrew his hand from the back of Jim’s head, earning him a momentary pout before he brought his fingers to Jim’s forehead, delicately brushing the hair back where it ought to lay. 

He let his hand linger there, fingertips pressed into Jim’s temple, and thumb falling to rest against the curve of his jaw. Jim’s eyes shone up at him for a moment, before he turned his head to press a kiss to the base of Spock’s thumb. 

_ The word love isn’t written in your book _ , the Doctor had said to him a few days ago, and even then Spock had struggled not to think of Jim and give a questioning glance. Now, all tangled in Jim’s arms, with his head against his chest, a fingertip kiss lingering against his face, Spock would have to very firmly disagree. 

Love was written in nearly everything he did. He just kept it well coded; blatantly unnoticeable except by those he intended to receive it, closely guarded but all the more preciously valued for it. Without fail, day after day, Jim held the cipher. Today, his love happened to be written in bars of music with lilting measures of three, and a dance undertaken without them.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!! feel free to leave kudos or comments if youre so inclined. this is the first spirk ive ever written but i highly doubt it will be the last so if you want to see me make a lot of vague posts about the next fic i undertake you can follow my star trek tumblr at [bonesismydad](https://bonesismydad.tumblr.com)


End file.
